Hearts Stand Still: Sidestories
by Eiruiel
Summary: Before Suzu began writing her story, many others were already under way. Companion fic to Hearts Stand Still.
1. Minato - 1

**Published: 6/25/2016**

 **Edited: 1/24/2018**

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Minato - 1 (Chapter 4)

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"Taichou, there's something you need to see."

"What is it?" Minato asks distractedly, not looking up from the pile of scrolls he is struggling to juggle. Too many reports have come in at once; the scouts are all over the place. "You might have to get back to me—I've got a lot going on here…"

"Taichou, they had a team from Konoha in an underground bunker," Hajime says urgently. "It's a genin team. It's… not good."

That gets Minato's attention.

"What's their status?" he asks as he lets his load drop haphazardly onto the table in front of him. "Why is a genin team here?"

"It seems village dispatched them with an emergency message. They must have been the only ones available."

Hajime motions with his hand before he takes off running. Minato lets himself be led through the forest until he is brought to a stop in front of a small, square hole in the ground. It is half-obscured by a thick, bushy shrub, but parting the leaves reveals the entrance to a dimly-lit underground room.

"The jounin sensei and two of his students are accounted for," Hajime says, "but there's no sign of the third. It seems the Iwa-nin were trying to extract information from them in a last-ditch effort…"

"Torture, then," Minato sighs. He knows they would have been desperate. He has been chasing them all week, herding them into a corner, and they had known they were trapped. They would have been willing to try anything to find a foothold.

Hajime makes a small noise of confirmation. Minato rolls his shoulders before he drops down into the hole.

The humid summer air is slightly cooler down here, but only slightly. It is not much of a relief. The whole bunker smells exactly like what he imagined a bunker full of trapped, unbathed enemy ninjas ought to smell like. It is small and the atmosphere is stifled; there is no wind to stir the air down here.

This, he thinks exasperatedly, is why hiding among trees is so much better than hunkering down below the dirt. Truly their enemies were Rock shinobi.

As his eyes adjust to the light Minato makes out three figures. The two students are lying on the ground in a dark pool of what can only be blood. Their instructor has crammed himself into a corner with his head pressed against his knee. Kei is kneeling next to him, gently trying to coax him into speech, but he remains still and silent.

When Minato's vision has finally righted itself he finds himself thinking that this jounin seems rather familiar. Slim frame, long brown hair… he looks almost like Suzu's—

"Itsuki Mikawaya?" Minato breathes, dread swelling in his gut. Slowly, the jounin lifts his face, and the countenance of Team 11's leader is unmistakable. Itsuki takes one look at Minato and drops his head back onto his knee.

Minato rushes over to the pair of bodies lying on the ground. Both still have their arms bound. Minato drops to his knees beside them and the first thing that meets his gaze is the lifeless stare of brown eyes. Yoshiya Miyazawa is dead; his expression is vacant and his face gone gray and still. There is a large tear in his black shirt that reveals the stab wound responsible for the bloody puddle. Minato looks frantically to the blond head next to his, half-hoping it is the other boy, Akihiko.

His hopes are disappointed. The blond one is indeed his cousin.

"Suzu!" he gasps, hand darting to her shoulder. The movement provokes a violent flinch and a small, panicked gasp. Her eyes are screwed shut as if anticipating a blow. Minato cannot help but flinch a bit himself when he sees the force with which her teeth come down upon her gruesomely abused bottom lip. But unlike the boy next her, she is moving. She is pale, yes, but she is also shifting and breathing and _alive_.

"Oh," he lets out a half-relieved, half-hysterical breath. "She's alive. Kei, she's alive!"

Minato can only assume that Kei had thought both of the students had died; when the medic whips his head around his expression is one of utter shock. The iryou-nin gets up dashes over. His hands light up with green chakra.

Minato holds his breath as the medic examines Suzu's body. The results of the diagnostic leave him feeling a nauseous mix of horror and outrage. Three broken ribs, internal bleeding, a concussion, a black eye… she has cuts and bruising from beatings all over, but the worst is at her throat, which has not only been repeatedly throttled, but screamed raw.

Itsuki, huddled in his corner, tangles a hand in his disheveled hair. As he listens to Kei rattle off his findings, his shoulders begin to shake with strangled, broken sobs.


	2. Souhei - 1

**Published: 8/23/2016**

 **Edited: 1/25/2018**

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Souhei - 1 (Chapter 6)

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"What did you think?"

Hayato takes off his glasses and pulls out a lens wipe.

"She seems like she's doing all right," he replies as he cleans the spectacles. "She had a bit of a freeze-up in the beginning but there was nothing I'd label as PTSD. You should still keep an eye on her, of course, but with luck she'll be able to put it all behind her as mere unpleasant memories."

Souhei rolls his eyes at his friend's droll assessment and politely refuses the use of the lens cleaner when it is offered.

"That's good to hear but you know that's not what I meant. Is she or isn't she?"

Hayato withdraws his hand and raises a single eyebrow as he deftly wads up the used cloth and flicks into the zippered opening of his bag. Then he crosses his legs, folds his hands, in his lap and leans back in his chair.

"It's hard to say," the doctor murmurs. "She's quite smart and she's uncommonly mature, but that's hardly enough to go off of. You know how children around here are."

Souhei tries not to let his disappointment show.

"She didn't drop any other hints?" he presses. "None at all?"

"No, sorry. Aside from all that she was a regular nine-year-old girl recovering from a bad experience. I couldn't tell you more and I wouldn't have suspected anything else if you hadn't asked."

Souhei sighs and puts his arms upon the table. His hand brushes his empty teacup.

"I'm almost certain, though," he confides. "You should have seen her, Hayato. One day, she just… changed. She looked at me like I was a total stranger. Then suddenly she was learning how to speak and write and read like it was nothing. She could use chakra like a wiz, too, only a few days after they'd started basic meditation. And just today—" Souhei sits up again as he remembers the way she had looked to the door just before Minato and Kushina had arrived. "Just today she was displaying sensor abilities. She had no supersensory talent at all when she was born. I remember. I visited Yasu and Kazue the day after. They asked me to check and I found nothing."

"Latent ability," Hayato suggests. He looks as doubtful as the proposition sounds. Souhei offers him an unimpressed stare.

"She's nine, Hayato. You know latent sensors don't come out until they're preteens at the earliest."

Hayato sighs and holds his arms up.

"I don't know what to tell you, Souhei. Have you checked Daisuke's notes?"

"I was going through them right before she came home. Everything points to it being true."

"Well, maybe it is, then," Hayato suggests softly. "Maybe she is like us."

Souhei groans and puts his head in his hand. All is silent except for the trickle of water and the spaced-out thuds of the souzu behind them. The large garden is still and the gazebo ceiling sits solidly above their heads.

"What will I do if she is?" he mutters after a long moment, raking a hand through his hair.

"It's up to you. You don't have to tell her about us if you don't want to."

"That's not what—" Souhei starts and then drops his head on the table. "It's just… what if she tries something and gets herself hurt, or killed, or…" he struggles for a moment. "After all, Daisuke said… and _me_ , I'm already ready to…"

"To lose them all?" Hayato's lips twist downward. "You know, Souhei, just because Daisuke thinks so doesn't mean your whole clan will actually die. He's smart and it's a valid theory, but that doesn't make it true."

"What else could have happened to us?" Souhei immediately hisses, jerking his head up so he can burn the offer of false hope away with a searing glare. "Did you ever hear anything of a Namikaze clan at all in the story? Our compound is one of the smallest in the village. All Kyuubi has to do is step on us and we'll be completely erased from existence. How could we have avoided mention if we were still around? Daisuke _is_ right. It's the logical conclusion."

"You know the writing of the series was never stellar," Hayato argues. "There were plotholes everywhere but that hasn't warped reality here at all. We exist separately from that story. It is not an immutable, absolute authority. How could we be here like this if it were?"

Souhei, suddenly drained of energy, grunts and turns his head away.

" _Souhei._ "

"Enough, Hayato. We've had this argument plenty of times already. You know how it'll end."

Hayato crosses his arms, dissatisfied.

"No, I don't know. I don't pretend that I can predict the future no matter how likely the conclusion seems."

"Hayato," Souhei warns as he lifts his face.

Hayato crosses his arms with a look of irritation. Souhei is almost inclined to call it disgust.

"Fine," Hayato says. "I can't make you do anything anyway, Souhei. You can decide what to do about Suzu-san on your own."

"I will, thanks," Souhei snaps back as though everything is sorted and he already has a plan in mind. But as the ghost of awaiting despair continues to hang silently from his back, he presses his forehead back down on the table and wonders if he won't just do what he's always done: nothing at all.


	3. Akihiko - 1

Published 7/10/2017

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Akihiko - 1 (Chapter 9)

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The training field, hidden away between the mountain and Konoha's northeastern forest, is one he has never been to. From what he can tell it is some sort of artificial wetland. If he had to guess he would say that it is used for terrain-based training by the Special Forces. The notion piques his interest. In every chronicle of the Second War he'd ever read Konoha's extended campaign in the swamplands of Amegakure had been labelled as one of the greatest blunders of the war. The unfamiliar marshes and bug-filled bogs had proven to be more of a deathtrap than any of the enemy machinations. With no idea of how to navigate effectively, the lack of mobility had not only locked troops in a pit of neverending malaria and dengue fever, but frustrated any manner of tactical achievement whatsoever. The idea that this training field had been created in the wake of the Second War to prevent the recurrence of such a campaign is intensely fascinating to him. Akihiko resolves to look into the matter after his orientation concludes.

And then, as he is shoved bodily into a pool of putrid swamp-piss, all thoughts of research fly from his head.

"What was that for?" Akihiko sputters disgustedly as he flails his arms and eventually manages to pull himself back onto dry—for certain values of "dry"—land. A few feet away, Kamoku stands untouched by the splash of grime.

"That was simulating the insult your team commander takes when you fail to report on time," the panther-masked shinobi replies. "As this is only your first day, we'll leave the legal ramifications of dereliction of duty aside until later. For now it will suffice for you to learn your tardiness was to me what that pool of water currently is to you. Do you have any questions?"

Akihiko spends a long moment gaping with an open mouth. The mask stares back impartially. And then, because Akihiko is not an idiot, he stands up and mutters quietly, "No, sir."

"Speak up," Kamoku replies. "I can't hear you."

A flash of irritation scuttles by like a roach. Akihiko slams his foot down on it.

"No, sir," he grinds out.

Kamoku crosses his arms and tilts his head. Akihiko wonders for a moment if he is going to get pushed in again anyway.

"Come here," Kamoku hums after a moment. "Let's do a bit of an exercise."

Warily, Akihiko approaches. Kamoku, arms still crossed, regards him for a moment. Then he says, "You are nowhere near the sort of person who can be in ANBU, Akihiko Namikaze. Tell me why."

"Why?" the boy repeats blankly. Not the sort of person who can be in ANBU? If that were the case, why had Susumu invited him here today in the first place? "What do you mean?"

"I mean tell me of your shortcomings. What are you bad at? What do you need to work on? What about you prevents you from being a Special Forces ninja?"

"...Why?" Akihiko asks again. "If I need to fix something, isn't it your job to tell me?"

"It most certainly is not," Kamoku replies sharply. "You're an apprentice, not an infant. We have no interest in taking on mindless, single-function automatons that need constant hand-holding. The very nature of our work demands we be able to realistically assess not only situations and their appropriate responses, but ourselves and how we function. If you are not constantly aware of yourself and your condition—your deficiencies included—you are doomed to failure."

Akihiko tries not to bristle at the implied insult to his competence, but he does not quite succeed. Kamoku deigns to let out a short laugh.

"Your pride has been wounded," he chuckles darkly. "You have an ego, then. Well, that's no matter... If you're going to survive here, I suspect that will be solved before long."

There is absolutely no safe answer to that so Akihiko gives none. Kamoku lets out a knowing snort.

"It's hardly suprising, though. I read your profile. Advanced tutoring in your clan style, top of your Academy class, member of the premier team of your graduating year… life's been too kind to you. Ones like you always need to be taken down a few notches when they first come in."

"Too kind?" Akihiko scoffs before he can help himself. He thinks of the mission, his team, and of Yoshiya, and he and wonders how in the world life had been kind to him.

Then, despite Kamoku's wearing of a mask, Akihiko is suddenly struck with the distinct feeling that his eyebrow has risen. The young ANBU-hopeful immediately regrets interrupting and braces himself for another dunk in the pool. Surprisingly, though, Kamoku does not kick him into the water. Instead, the ANBU just laughs again.

"Foolish _and_ naive. Well, I won't argue with you about whether or not you've suffered as much as you think you have. Let's return to our exercise, shall we? You have yet to answer my question. Explain to me your deficiencies as a shinobi."

Akihiko opens his mouth but nothing comes out. What could? Having borne so many insults in the past sixty seconds, and now being asked to continue the abuse himself, what could he be but at a loss for words? A long moment passes.

"You're struggling," Kamoku observes flatly. "How promising."

"I'm… sorry?" is Akihiko's incredulous reply. Kamoku just snorts.

"I guess it can't be helped... I'll have walk you through it. Now, I'm sure there's no shortage of discussion topics—" Akihiko is sure that the man is smirking now— "but for simplicity's sake, let's try something easy, shall we? Like your lateness to this morning's meeting."

The groan does not escape Akihiko's lips, but it is a near thing. His tardiness, it seems, is quickly becoming a thing of legend. Something else, he thinks bitterly, to blame on the fight.

"Well? Why were you late?" Kamoku prompts.

"That's…" Akihiko looks away. "It's complicated."

His mentor is not impressed. "That was possibly the most pathetic deflection I've heard in years," he informs. "If you're going to try to evade the question, make an effort not to be so incompetent about it."

An angry exhalation does manage to force its way through Akihiko's throat then.

"Sorry, okay?" he does not quite snap. "It wasn't like I decided to go on a flower-picking trip or something. I wasn't late because something nice happened."

"Excuses," is the unamused reply. "And bad ones at that. Try again, wretch."

Fed up with the name-calling, Akihiko goes silent. The moment stretches out, long and awkward, but he obstinately refuses to speak in spite of his mentor's silent reproach. It goes so far that Kamoku actually begins tapping his foot. A small eternity passes.

"...You've wasted enough of my time today," Kamoku finally decides. "If you wanted to stay in the General Forces that badly, you should have just said something. Come on. We're going back to the Tower."

"What?" a bolt of horror strikes Akihiko through the heart. "No! That's not what… I wasn't trying to…"

"What are you trying to accomplish, then?" Kamoku asks coldly. "What sort of message do you think you send me by behaving this way? You were late. You aren't making an effort to learn. You'd rather stand here in wet clothes and refuse to speak for the sake of avenging your bruised ego than cooperate with my instructions. Why would I think that you want to continue on this path when your actions are clearly saying otherwise?"

"I can't go back to the General Forces now!" Akihiko panics in reply. "Not now… not anymore!"

How could he? There was no way he could go back to his old team and go on taking missions like nothing had happened. What sort of face would Suzu look at him with? How would she ever tolerate teaming up with him again? He hadn't meant it—of course he hadn't, he never meant it, of course he knew it wasn't her fault Yoshiya died that way—but what did that mean to her? Even if he hadn't meant it, what reason did she have to forgive him?

Kamoku regards him—or seems to regard him—with a dispassionate look. "Explain," he orders.

Akihiko's ears begin to burn bright red, but he swallows and stutters out the morning's events: the misunderstanding, the betrayal, the angry accusation, the ridiculous punch, and even the mortifying flight from the glare of Suzu's terrifying uncle. By the time he finishes Kamoku has a gloved palm plastered to his mask.

"Unbelievable," the brown-haired man breathes. "You're in a league all its own."

Akihiko just curls his fingers into fists and stares at his feet, unable to refute it.

"Has it ever occurred to you," Kamoku questions with sweltering contempt, "to try biting your tongue just once in your life? Don't think I didn't hear about your outburst in the camp during the mission, either. Are you always this much of flaming wreck?"

"Only when I get mad," Akihiko mumbles. Kamoku puts his forehead in his hand again.

For a moment, all Akihiko can hear the buzz of insects. His skin begins to crawl with the chill of his waterlogged clothes. His feet start to itch and the sound of his breath is shallow. In that instant Akihiko finds he is suddenly able to name the insidious, torpid emotion that has been licking at his consciousness since he had first fled from his clan's compound: misery.

"...Why didn't you tell me?" Akihiko mutters. He isn't sure if he really wants to know, but he says the words just to fill the air. "That she didn't accept, I mean?"

"Why should I have?" Kamoku lowers his gauntleted arm with a snort. "So you could have pressured her into remaking her decision?"

Akihiko's first reaction is to protest, but as he opens his mouth he finds himself realizing that that is exactly what he would have done. Silently—wretchedly—he shuts it again.

"...I was disappointed too," Kamoku shares after a long moment. "It was such a waste. We only had a short conversation, but it was clear that she was vastly intelligent. Self-aware, too... unlike you," he adds sardonically. "She was nothing special martially, but that would have been solved easily enough with the proper instruction. After all, you're all the proof one needs to realize that it's a much smaller matter to teach a person technique than it is to teach him wits."

Akihiko finds himself suddenly awash in a sea of weariness. "I'm not stupid," he sighs as he finds himself remembering the days when Yoshiya had jabbed at his intellect in just the same way. "You know that I'm not."

Akihiko readies himself for another blistering counter-snark, but Kamoku, somewhat surprisingly, does not seize the opening. In fact, the tired honesty almost seems to soften him.

"You're right," the ANBU says. His voice is not gentle, but it is not ironic or sarcastic, either. "You're not stupid. But you're temperamental and you lack self-control. You crumple under stress. For people like us that's just as bad as being stupid. Worse, even."

"So what should I do?" the boy asks. He finds he cannot keep his shoulders from slumping. "It's always like this. I've never been any different. I don't know how."

"That's all right," Kamoku quietly replies. "No one could expect you to know all on your own. And you don't have to know in this very moment, either. Once you've understood weakness, you only have to rely your elders for help."

Akihiko looks up.

"Are you saying…" his lips purse. "Are you saying you're going to fix it?"

"No," Kamoku shakes his head. "It's not within my ability to fix other people. But I can help you find a path. That, rather than force-feeding you reform, is the real job of a mentor, Rengoku."

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A/N: I've received a lot of feedback expressing extreme hatred for Akihiko. It'll be interesting to see how opinions of him evolve over time.


	4. Reiko - 1

**Published: 3/9/2018**

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Reiko - 1 (Chapter 10)

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Lately Souhei has been pulling away.

Reiko remembers a time when these episodes had frightened her terribly. She hadn't known him half as well as she does now; back then, when he got into moods like these, she'd spend entire nights lying awake and wondering if the next day would be the day he finally vanished. She had been waiting always—even in the peaceful moments when he had been sleeping soundly at her side—for him to finally decide that he'd made a mistake. If she closed her eyes and slept would she wake the next morning and find a note? Or would he find a way to fake his death and leave without ever telling her the truth? Would he disappear without ever saying anything at all?

She had often wondered if perhaps she had been the one to make a mistake. She'd known from the very beginning, after all, that Souhei had a secret—a second life, a clandestine something—that he never shared with anyone. In the early days before they'd ever dreamed of marriage she'd speculated that perhaps he was seeing someone else on the side, but those thoughts had been short-lived. Beyond the fact that he'd never been the type to two-time in anything—he wouldn't have bothered with the pretense if he had been bored or unsatisfied—one day she found herself glimpsing, without ever meaning to, Souhei living that secret second life.

She remembers the mask well even today. She remembers thinking it had been incongruous, that cute white and red rabbit mask, because the man who had been wearing it had been tall and lean and dangerous. Nothing about him had been fluffy or warm. He'd been dressed in the cold blacks and steel grays of an ANBU uniform.

They had traded scrolls with an air of familiar camaraderie. Tucked away in an untrafficked hallway, half-hidden by bulky vending machines, he and Souhei had placed their papers into secret pockets, the ANBU's in his vest and Souhei's in his white lab coat. Then they had traded wry glances and hushed words. She hadn't heard what they said but once she realized what she had witnessed she ran without daring to glance back.

For a few days she had worried and waited. Had they seen her? Did they know? Had it been something of great magnitude? Reiko was General Forces but she knew as well as anyone why everything about ANBU was a secret. Knowledge was dangerous. Even if one meant the best, anything could go wrong when people learned things they weren't meant to learn. And Reiko had witnessed something no one had been meant to witness. That made her a liability.

But despite her fretting Souhei had behaved with her as he always did. His gaze had been as direct and clear as always, without hint of suspicion or reserve—not beyond what was usual, anyway. Eventually she was forced to conclude that he hadn't realized anything.

He didn't know that she knew now, too.

That encounter haunted Reiko in everything. Whenever he told her he was busy that night, whenever she went to his apartment and found it empty, whenever he took a day off at the hospital and vanished, she wondered. She knew she shouldn't but she speculated about his role. An active agent fighting in the war? A quiet informant? Evidence pointed to the latter, but there was no way of telling whether or not it was the former. Beyond that chance encounter Souhei had never given anything away. There was no way to know at all what he was up to.

What foolishness, she thought one morning after an enormous fight, still sitting in the bedroom alone by the window as she'd been for hours. He'd stormed out at eleven in the evening and had yet to return. She knew he couldn't talk about it. Why had she asked? She knew already anyway. She knew, so why had she begged him to marry her? Why had he agreed? What were they doing?

It took two more days for him to return. When he did he had a hideous black eye and a reddening bandage winding up his arm.

"I sparred with a friend," he said, tired and resigned. "It got heated."

And Reiko burst into tears.

* * *

But the years went winding on and Souhei stayed. He would drift, worry, and then draw back again as warm and in love as he had been the day they'd married. Then one morning he would look up with distant dread in his eye and start the cycle all over again. Drifting and drawing back. Drifting, drifting, drifting, and then drawing back again. It is his way of life; he doesn't know how else to exist. Fear is constantly at his heel.

Reiko doesn't ask those questions anymore. In a way she doesn't need to. It hasn't been easy, but she knows the answer now. Whatever hurt this man is hiding, whatever wound has been so fastly fixed to his heart—Reiko sighs as she buries her face in his back and breathes in his scent, rich and airy and smelling of bamboo.

They are lying silently in bed again. Lately he has been pulling away; they haven't spoken properly in two days now. But Reiko can close her eyes and sleep because by now she does know that however far and often his fear forces him to wander—however many times his shadowy second life drives him away—so long as he has legs to carry him he will find his way home again.

He loves his family, after all.


End file.
